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Skibum's yeast water experiment

October 24, 2013 - 4:45pm

Skibum

Skibum's yeast water experiment

I would like to make a big shout out to dabrownman for pm'ing his detailed for producing and maintaining a YW starter. I have tried and failed twice and this time I was anal: boiled the glass jar, boiled the Brita filtered tap water and sat in the sun in a glass jar for the day to fully eliminate the chlorine. Next as per dman, 1/2 un-washed organic apple cored and minced and half crushed, ditto 20 organic raisins ditto. I am going to follow the dman's instructions to the tee and post daily photos. Another new fun project.

. . . in cold Canada was how to keep the YW @ 75 - 80F. My solution was to use a small cooler with a container of hot water and my Maverick digital thermometer probe to measure and voila -- 70F steady. Hey I certainly wouldn't want to be the first one to fail at yeast water! It looks and smells great and I feel good about my chances this go around!

set on medium heat with kitchen towels between it and the YW to regulate the heat as exact as I can by adjusting the towel layers to hit 78 F. Then cover the YW with a towel. I do the same thing for dough; levain and starters in the dead of winter too - when the temperature at night goes into the high 30's and is only 65 F during the day and same in the kitchen since I'm not heating the house after cooling it for 6 months!.

I followed the same guideline and a week later its up and running. Not sure if its full strength but its alive and actually smells delicious. Like a hard cider. I re fed today and am making my first loaf with it. I am doing a hybrid with White Sour Starter and the YW levain smelt sweet and appley after four hours and got even sweeter at 8 hours. Excited to see it in the oven as I've been told its explosive.

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